The past two or three years have been eye-opening for most of the population all around the world; people have started to realize that something big is coming. Today, we encounter ourselves in the first decade where the Millennials, those who were born after 1982, have come to make up the same (or about to) proportion as the Baby Boomers (the past generation) in the electoral-voting population. This is a decisive fact for the outcomes of the future electoral processes in the U.S. and all around the world since the overall contrast that our generation has compared to those who came before us exposes an important ideological difference.
It is imperative to realize that the Millennials are considered the most educated and liberal generation of the past 2 centuries. According to a CIRCLE report funded by the New American Foundation and made by Constance Flanagan and Les Gallay: "Each generation has grown somewhat more conservative as its members have moved through life. But the Millennials are starting to the left of previous generations and are therefore likely to move the country leftward for decades to come". Sure, the leftist sentiment that our generation has its just a sociological pattern like any other young generation in history, however, our "leftist" ideological thoughts have become more progressive and reasonable as we have come to be the generation with the largest educational background. Not saying that degrees are by any chance the only measurement of knowledge, but the fact that our generation is more worried about how and what we learn rather than how much money are we going to make with our degrees is a critical point when addressing the political, economic, and sociological future of the world.
What are this so called outcomes of education? The Millennials believes in equality, immigration, freedom of expression, educational rights, globalization, corporative regulations, among other ideas not only in more depth than the previous generations but also with an augmented logical foundation rather than an emotional anarchical desire. This generation is not made of just believers, is made of critical thinkers.
The only issue the Millennials are dealing with is that despite of the fact that the electoral proportion is the same, the voting turnout does not share a correlation with it. As exposed by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic's article, based on the U.S. Bureau database, Baby Boomers are still the generation with the highest turnout in any type of elections.
It is imperative for this generation to realize that the butterfly effect is bigger than it has ever been and that the concept of a global citizen and the global interconnection of countries are two ideas that have come a long way to stay with this generation as a tool in deciding the future that we want to construct. Hopefully, the Millennials will understand that the time to act , to vote, to get involved, and to set the guidelines for the future is NOW!.
As a small grain of sand that forms part of this generation, I can only say that I am excited to see what our generation has in store for the world during the next 10-20 years. We are now the voice of the world, the ones who can change the path of our countries, the ones to defy the standards, and the ones to make that difference that we all dream about.
